But everything Microsoft has done since the confusing Ribbon interface has been less intuitive and more inefficient, especially for power users.

This new tile direction is about art, design awards, and abstraction. In no way is it about productivity. And despite the use of simplistic tiles, it is not about simplicity. Someone along the way confused "simplistic" with "simplicity." There's a big difference. The first is dumb and clumsy; the second is smart and elegant.

Part of the rumor is that Microsoft will also allow you to boot to the desktop too. That's just one opinion... There are many who love the tiled Start page and find it far superior to the old style "list." I can see where it's better on a touch enabled device, but I'm sort of neutral on it for mouse and keyboard. I do disagree with the part of the quote that opines that it's dumb and clumsy. I don't find it to be either even with keyboard and mouse. Once I got mine set up the way I want it, it's simple and very intuitive. My 6 year-old granddaughter sat down with it and was flying around in less than 5 minutes exploring everything.

If Microsoft wants to do something smart with the OS though, they will bring back the Start button at the very least. Booting into the desktop is not that big of a deal because if you place a desktop tile in the upper left, a simple press of the enter key takes you there. If they allow people the options they are used to, they can discover and take advantage of the underpinnings of Windows 8 which are it's real strength.

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In my PC corner for the winter, gaming, knitting and reading.

This is encouraging news. Does Windows 7 also offer a "Classic View" option? I never opted for the XP view since it released and have always used the older "Classic View" It would be nice for the option to choose what you want to see in an Operating System instead of forcing something down ones throat. But even with a Classic View don't we still have the problem with Windows 8 and Classic gaming or am I wrong with this?

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"Don't Hate Me Because I Am Beautiful...There Are Many Other Reasons!"

Many people were horrified by the so-called "Fisher-Price" interface of XP and opted to stay with the old Classic View. Personally, I RAN away from the old Classic View as it was just clunky in my opinion. Today, those views are almost 20 years old and I much prefer the way the new operating systems look and work.

There are some tweaks you can make to Windows 7 such as eliminating the Aero and Glass features. There are 3rd party apps out there that will allow you to customize the appearance, but I "think" - with the operative word being think - that they will only go back to the look of XP. Classic Shell is one of them that I'm aware of.

Read our Windows 8 and Games thread stickied at the top of the Glitches forum for a feel how games are working Windows 8. I've been pretty pleasantly surprised by how many of the old games are playing. I've included the year the games were released for reference.

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In my PC corner for the winter, gaming, knitting and reading.

Well for my 2 cents (a buck and a quarter for inflation) it took me a while to get used to the Windows 8 interface but now that I am, I prefer it.

I never really used the start menu in previous versions anyway because it was always to clutered and it was too much of a hassle to weed it out. Therefore, I just used the task bar and icons on the desktop to list the programs that I used on a regular basis. So, if given the choice I would opt to keep what I have now become used to.

Being able to switch to the desktop and the icons on the windows 8 startup is, for me, the best of both worlds and since I've finally become familiar with it, the windows 8 startup works for me.

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You laugh because I'm differentI laugh because you're all the same

My experience with Windows 8 has been very brief but very intense. My aunt bought a new laptop with Windows 8 on it and asked for my help as she was having problems. I'm not crazy about the tile screens replacing the start button but I can live with it. The one issue I have is that it appears that a given program is designed to run either from the tile screen or from the desktop and that you can't choose where to run it. This is annoying to me as I would probably prefer to work mostly from the desktop but it looks like I would severely limit what I could do if I stayed always in the desktop.

Am I missing something or is this really how it works?

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BobAs I've grown older, I've found that my memory is not as good as I used to think it was.

Gil, the plain Print Screen works the same way. A screenshot is placed on the clipboard. Then you open up Paint (or PSP or whatever) and paste it in there to edit or save as a .jpg. In Windows 8, if you press Windows key + Printscreen, the screenshot is automatically saved as a .jpg file in your Pictures folder in a file called Screenshots. No pasting into Paint or PSP or anything. One step screenshots...

BobH, your annoyance is also mine. What is going on is you are still able to install and run legacy programs on the desktop side. So, if you open up one of those programs, you are flipped over to the desktop. If you are strictly running apps from the Start menu, you stay in the Start menu. If you had a Surface tablet with Windows RT (run time) on it, then you would stay in the tiled Start page all the time because Windows RT cannot run any legacy programs. You can tell the difference between a Start page app and a simple link (in the shape of a tile). If you right click on an app, you have several options to make it larger or smaller or make it a live tile etc. If it's simply a link to something, those options are not there... because all it is, is a link, not an app.

The problem for me is that I have the things I use the most on my operating system in tiles on the Start page - such as Computer or Control Panel or Downloads. These also flip you over to the desktop which I find very annoying. I've heard that these are going to be integrated into the Start page with one of the upgrades.

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In my PC corner for the winter, gaming, knitting and reading.

I use the Snipping Tool for screenshots that are just the exact part of the screen I want. Much easier than all the copying and pasting and cropping in another program. I just grab what I want with the Snipping Tool and it's saved as a .jpg or .png or whatever file format I want.

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In my PC corner for the winter, gaming, knitting and reading.

I use the Snipping Tool for screenshots that are just the exact part of the screen I want. Much easier than all the copying and pasting and cropping in another program. I just grab what I want with the Snipping Tool and it's saved as a .jpg or .png or whatever file format I want.

Someone told me about the Snipping Tool a short time ago and now that's all I ever use. It is a big improvement over Print Screen and Paint. It can be found in the Start Menu under Accessories.

By the way, about using the Start Menu, I do use it. I don't tend to start programs from desktop shortcuts so I put my most often used ones on the task bar and pin the less often used ones to the start menu. Very clean for me as it only amounts to about 10 icons pinned to the start menu and 8 to the task bar. I have the Snipping Tool pinned to the Start Menu for easy access.

Edited by BobH (04/17/1309:36 PM)Edit Reason: cleaned up the text

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BobAs I've grown older, I've found that my memory is not as good as I used to think it was.